In Gongadze case, a milestone toward justice

New
York, January 29, 2013--The conviction today of a former high-ranking Ukrainian
police official in the murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze is a long-overdue
step, but justice will not be fully served until all of the
perpetrators are held responsible, the Committee to Protect Journalists said
today. Gongadze, founder and editor of the critical news website Ukrainska Pravda, was the first online
journalist worldwide to be murdered for his work, according to CPJ
research.

The
Pechersky District Court in Kiev, the capital, convicted former police Gen.
Aleksei Pukach of strangling and beheading Gongadze in September 2000, and
sentenced him to life in prison, local and international press
reported. In March 2008, authorities convicted and sentenced
to prison Pukach's accomplices, three former police officers who had acted
on his orders. No masterminds have been brought to justice.

In
previous statements, Pukach implicated
several other high-ranking government officials, including former president
Leonid Kuchma, in orchestrating the killing, according to news agency Interfax-Ukraina
and news reports. Kuchma was indicted
in March 2011, but Ukraine's Constitutional Court tossed out a key audiotape
said to implicate the ex-president and then a trial court dismissed
the charges later that year.

Valentina
Telychenko, lawyer for Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze, told journalists
her client would appeal the ruling, in hopes that other conspirators would be
identified and prosecuted.

"We
welcome this conviction as a milestone on the road that will lead to the
masterminds of Georgy Gongadze's grisly murder," said CPJ Deputy Director
Robert Mahoney. "The Ukrainian authorities have been dragging their feet for 13
years. It's time they delivered justice."

For more data and analysis on the Ukraine,
visit CPJ's Ukraine page here.